Dass etwas nicht geschehen ist, heißt nicht, dass es nicht noch geschehen kann

The expression Dass etwas nicht geschehen ist, heißt nicht, dass es nicht noch geschehen kann means that because something has not happened, it does not follow that it cannot happen. Harry Hole tests this principle with the possibility of a bottle striking the floor if released, then gives it a more painful application: people may understand what they should have done only after the chance to do it has passed.

A possibility tested with a bottle

In his conversation with Øystein Eikeland, Harry asks how he could know that a bottle would hit the floor if he let it go. The image gives the expression a concrete, almost comic form: an outcome that has not yet occurred remains possible, even if it cannot be treated as certain. Harry jokes that a philosopher may be speaking through him, naming Hobbes, Hume, and Heidegger as possible sources before conceding that he cannot remember which one.

The exchange frames the expression as a challenge to treating the past as proof of what can or cannot happen next. Its force is deliberately modest: Harry does not claim that the bottle must fall, only that its not having fallen yet cannot settle the question.

The delay between experience and understanding

Harry shifts from the bottle to the difficulty of learning. He argues that people can learn, but so slowly that understanding arrives too late to change the moment that mattered. His example is a loved one asking for a Liebesdienst: Helping Someone Die in the Name of Love. A person may refuse because they do not yet understand the request; by the time they do, the opportunity has gone.

That example gives the expression its tragic edge. The future possibility it preserves is not simply that a past failure can be repeated or reversed. Harry imagines the painful substitution of doing such a service for someone else, perhaps even someone he hates. The distinction between an action still being possible and the original chance being recoverable remains unresolved; the expression offers possibility, not restoration.

Hope qualified by love and hate

When Øystein asks whether it is never too late to do good, Harry rejects the absolute version of that reassurance. He says people hate too much to hear other impulses, then recalls his father's view that love and hate are two sides of the same coin. This complicates the expression's optimism: what has not happened may still happen, but the capacity to recognize and act on that possibility can be obstructed by hatred and delayed understanding.

The line therefore holds possibility and regret together. Its bottle remains a simple hypothetical, while its moral application concerns choices whose consequences may outlast the chance to make them. Harry does not promise that every lost opportunity can be recovered; he insists only that the past cannot, by itself, prove that the future is closed.